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RAILWAY OPERATING DEPARTMENT

GWR DIESEL RAILCARS

Just as The A Team's Hannibal Smith loved it when a plan came together, so I was very pleased to acquire a model of ex Great Western Railway diesel railcar W32W for my N gauge layout Terminal 1. Not only did it add to the collection of vintage trains that could be driven from both ends but it also represented the ancestry of all the other diesel multiple unit trains from the venerable Metropolitan Cammell Class 101 to the latest Bombardier Voyager, just as GWR liveried 0-4-2T 1420 and autocoach 187 were the antecedents of the Wrexham and Shropshire and Inter City Swallow semi-fixed formations.

Even more importantly, as hinted at in the picture above, W32W made a direct link from the layout to GWR railcar 18 - the mascot of this website - and through that pioneering vehicle to the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Limited

Even more importantly, as hinted at in the picture above, W32W made a direct link from the layout to GWR railcar 18 - the mascot of this website - and through that historic vehicle to the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Limited

The North Eastern Railway had operated the first petrol electric rail "autocar" between Scarborough and Filey by August 1904 and a four wheeled petrol electric passenger vehicle - numbered 100 - was acquired by the GWR in 1911.

This was designed and built by British Thomson-Houston with a 40 bhp Maudslay prime mover at one end, weighed 14 tons 9 cwt, measured 33' 3" overall and could seat 44 passengers. With a range of 250 miles on one tank of petrol number it could reach 35 mph. Number 100 worked the GWR Windsor branch until it was sold in October 1919 to the Lever Brothers private railway at Port Sunlight, Cheshire. It was withdrawn in 1923 and the body eventually became a seaside bungalow at Gronant Beach, near Prestatyn, where it remained until the 1950s. A broadly similar Drewery petrol -electric vehicle was later used on the Weston, Cleveland and Portishead Railway.

However, the first - much safer - diesel electric vehicle in European service began working between Mellerst and Sodermanlads in Sweden in 1913 but it was not until the development of light, compact, economical road bus type diesel engines in the 1930s that non-steam rail passenger transport began to be widely accepted.

Indeed, Deutsche Reichsbahn gained much publicity from 1933 with the introduction of their "Flying Hamburger", weighing just 78 tonnes but powered by a pair of 12 cylinder 410 bhp Maybach engines. This articulated two-car streamlined train offered a daily service between Hamburg and Berlin, covering the 178.1 miles at an average speed of 77.4 mph and travelling at 100 mph on some sections of the journey.

So impressed with the Flying Hamburger were the owners of Clacton Pier that they offered the London & North Eastern Railway £10 000 towards the cost of three similar trains for a high speed service to London Liverpool Street. The LNER declined the offer, but in 1935 introduced their streamlined A4 pacifics to haul a matching "Silver Jubilee" air-smoothed set of carriages to Newcastle from Kings Cross.

Near to the Great Western main line at Southall however, The Associated Equipment Company (AEC) were already building their own diesel mechanical railcar chassis based on the prior success of their subsidiary, Hardy Railmotors Limited and its visionary engineer C.F. Cleaver.

Hardy Railmotors Limited had provided petrol and diesel engined shunting locomotives in addition to four- and six-wheel drive lorries and tractors through their associated company, the Four Wheel Drive Lorry Company. Cleaver realised that the established and successful 130 bhp 6-cylinder AEC-Ricardo diesel engine used in London buses and numerous other commercial vehicles, was capable of powering a lightweight self-contained streamlined railcar.

Like the Flying Hamburger, the first AEC railcar had driving cabs at each end but weighed only 20 tons, could seat 69 passengers and was powered by a standard AEC-Ricardo 121 bhp London bus engine as well as incorporating many other standard parts from London buses. In a very similar configuration to the AEC Q bus chassis of the time, the engine was mounted vertically outside the frames, and drove via a fluid flywheel and four-speed epicyclic gearbox to final drives on both axle boxes of one side of the same bogie.

The bodywork - built by Willesden based AEC subsidiary Park Royal Coach Works - was also streamlined and according to wind tunnel tests at the London Passenger Transport Board's Chiswick Laboratories would cut fuel consumption by 20% compared to a standard train, although the AEC/ Park Royal railcar had an inferior power to weight ratio and could only reach a top speed of 60 mph. The outside of the streamlined body had removable fairings to access the engine and transmission while the interior had bus type seats arranged in a 2+3 formation either side of a central gangway facing each other in bays.

Despite this, the new British machine was sold to the Great Western Railway - noted for its use of steam railmotors and auto-trains - before completion for the sum of £ 3 249 and was painted in chocolate and cream with the GWR coat of arms on each nose end.

Prior to entering service, GWR diesel railcar 1 was displayed at the International Commercial Motor Transport Exhibition at Olympia in November 1933. Such was the railcar's popularity at the exhibition, it was estimated that 35,000 people or 53.25 per cent of those that paid for admission to Olympia, visited the railcar. Great publicity, something that the Great Western thrived on, was also given to the railcars movement from Olympia to the GWR sidings at Brentford when the exhibition closed.

Based at Southall Depot , Great Western diesel railcar number 1 began public service on 4 December 1933 and was immediately worked hard to compete with frequent parallel bus services on no less than 16 daily turns between Slough, Reading, Didcot, Windsor and Henley. Although No.1 was returned to AEC in January 1934 for brake modifications and the fitting of GWR Automatic Train Control equipment it was back in service on 5 February 1934 and moved 10 000 passengers in its first full month of service. Encouraged by this, the GWR ordered three more powerful cars for cross country express services.

GWR railcars 2-4, all delivered in 1934, each had a pair of 121 bhp engines and were geared for 75 mph running with a seating capacity of 44 in 2+2 formation with tables in each bay, buffet area and two lavatories. The tare weight of each car was 26.2 tons and the price more than doubled to £ 6 541.

GWR railcars 2-4, all delivered in 1934, each had a pair of 121 bhp engines - which could also heat the vehicle interiors by way of the radiators - and were geared for 75 mph running with a seating capacity of 44 in 2+2 formation with tables in each bay, buffet area and two lavatories. Like railcar 1 however they featured minimalist stub buffers and concealed drawgear for recovery use. The tare weight of each car was 26.2 tons and the price more than doubled to £ 6 541.

On 9 July 1934 railcars 2-4 were launched on the Cardiff-Birmingham Snow Hill service through Gloucestershire with a fastest westbound timing of 142 minutes for the 116 3/4 miles, as much as 34 minutes faster than had been achieved with steam. For the first year, these services also attracted a surcharge of 2s 6 d - the same amount that the LNER was charging as supplementary fare for the Silver Jubilee - and the streamlined trio continued on the twice daily Cardiff-Birmingham run until 1940. Railcars 2-4 were then replaced with higher capacity railcars 10-12 between Swansea and Cheltenham and went on to return to this route and the journey between Newport and Swansea after VE Day.

Railcar 4 is now preserved at Steam in Swindon.

GWR railcars 5-16 - delivered between July 1935 and April 1936 - however reverted to the high capacity short haul format of railcar number 1, although like railcars 2-4 they were powered by pairs of 121 bhp prime movers. Each body - built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Limited - featured sliding rather than outward opening doors, one lavatory and 63 seats and the Gloucester railcars were initially allocated to Oxford-Worcester-Hereford and Bristol-Weymouth journeys. Meanwhile, other GWR diesel railcars went to work around Oxford, the West Midlands, west Wales and the Pontypool-Monmouth-Chepstow-Newport areas. Each of railcars 5-16 weighed in at between 29 and 30 tons and survived in British Railways service until 1960.

After Nationalisation, all ex GWR vehicles running on British Railways Western Region had the letter W suffixed to the running number and many of the railcars had their side valencing removed for ease of maintenance - as was the case with the A4 Pacifics of the former LNER.

The Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Limited also built number 17, the Great Western Railways - and the World's - first diesel parcels car to relieve passenger expresses of some of their heavy parcels traffic in the London area and also allow them to accelerate their timings.

Railcar 17 - with plain sides relieved only by three sets of glazed double sliding doors - could carry letters, parcels and milk churns between London and its suburbs quickly and without shunting. GRCW bodied railcars 13 and 14 were later converted to parcels use as well.

Number 17's daily diagram started alongside Lyon's Cadby Hall HQ at what is now Kensington Olympia, where it was loaded with the firm's deliveries to the Reading and Oxford areas. On returning from Oxford number 17 picked up general traffic at all stations to Paddington, then completed its day with a similar working to Reading and back.

Gloucester RCW's railcar 18 of April 1937 also broke new ground as it was fitted with conventional buffers, drawgear, vacuum brake hoses and a lower geared transmission to allow it to haul a 60 ton trailing load. It was also mounted on more substantial bogies - designed not to be covered by air-smoothing valences - which took its weight to 33.6 tons and even had control lines to work with a Great Western auto-trailer and be driven from an auto-trailer's cab.

It had been specifically ordered by Paddington for the Newbury to Lambourn branch, which had been opened as a light railway on 2 April 1898 and would close to passengers on 4 January 1960. By the late 1930s the branch - in the heart of Berkshire's racehorse country - needed a track renewal that its traffic could not justify if heavy locomotives were to continue to regularly operate. With number 18 - featuring 49 five a side seats - in service however, locomotives could be restricted to infrequent goods trains. In fact railcar 18 managed to turn the branch line's operating loss into a small profit.

Number 18 was based at Reading and began each day by delivering mail to Basingstoke off each night's Up GWR postal trains, continuing to serve Lambourn well into the 1950s.

The original caption on the reverse of card 29 of the 50 strong W.D. & H.O. Wills Cigarette series "Railway Equipment" issued in 1939 read:

"With eighteen diesel-engine railcars in service and a further twenty under construction, the G.W.R. is the biggest user of these light and speedy units among the home railways. These railcars can be driven from either end, the engines and radiators being arranged along the sides below the body. The types in use by the G.W.R. range from cars fitted with buffets for the fast Cardiff-Birmingham services to a single luggage and parcels carrying type. The railcar illustrated is for branch line or intermediate service traffic. If required it can haul a trailer coach, as shown, or a horsebox. It can also perform light shunting duties."

Throughout the career of GWR railcars 1-18, AEC was responsible under contract for the maintenance of their engines, transmissions, electrical gear and bogies and so AEC mechanics were always on call at Bristol, Stourbridge, Swansea Landore and Reading. Overhauls were undertaken after each 100 000 miles of running, firstly at AEC's Southall works for the power plant and later at Swindon for bodywork and other heavy repairs.

As well as the cigarette cards, Westward's 00 gauge 4mm scale white metal kit has kept the legend of GWR Railcar 18 alive. Above, a completed example passes a dairy farm on the Bilbrook layout displayed at Cheltenham in October 2006 and another is seen below on the Limesbridge layout displayed in aid of CLIC Sargeant at St Margaret's Hall, Cheltenham in October 2007

In February 1938 the GWR Chairman told the company's annual meeting that 20 more diesel railcars were being ordered. With almost a million miles run by the first 18 examples, he said that:

"Whilst the original intention was to use them to provide additional services where the traffic was insufficient to justify the working of a train, our experience is that owing to the increasing cost of operating steam locomotives considerable economy can be effected by replacing them with diesel cars on certain sections".

Railcars 19-38 were constructed in-house at Swindon with AEC supplying transmissions and pairs of engines rated at 105 bhp. Deliveries - from July 1940 to February 1942 - also coincided with the early years of the Second World War and this final batch of railcars had more angular utilitarian bodies and 48 seats in 2+2 formation. Weights for railcars 19-38 were 35.65 tons and costs £ 6 240 apiece.

Railcars 19-38 were constructed in-house at Swindon with AEC supplying transmissions and pairs of AEC direct injection engines rated at 105 bhp. Deliveries - from July 1940 to February 1942 - also coincided with the early years of the Second World War and this final batch of railcars had clasp instead of drum brakes, more angular utilitarian bodies and 48 seats in 2+2 formation. Weights for railcars 19-33 were 35.65 tons and costs £ 6 240 apiece.

The performance of Gloucester RCW built car 18 had proved so influential that all but 19 and 20 of the Swindon built batch were permanently geared for a maximum speed of 40 mph and sufficient tractive effort to haul a trailing load. Railcars 19 and 20 had special dual-range gearboxes which gave the options of 60mph fast running or a higher tractive effort at low speed.

Railcar 19 - along with Gloucester RCW 6 - both spent time filling motive power shortages around Newcastle in 1944, number 34 became a second purpose built parcels car after Gloucester RCW built 17 and railcars 35-38 prefigured the British Railways diesel multiple units of the 1950s by being outshopped from Swindon as single cab vehicles with a vestibule at the non-driving end. These could run as a power twin formation with a top speed of 70 mph or sandwich a control line fitted standard GWR third class carriage.

Within each power-twin set, one vehicle would offer 60 seats in two separate saloons while the other would have 32 seats, a baggage compartment and a 12 seat buffet-bar section. However, by the time that the pre-War designed railcars were introduced all on-train catering had been banned to maximise passenger space and after VE Day there was such a surge in railway traffic that locomotive hauled trains replaced the power-trailer-power combinations on their original Cardiff-Gloucester-Birmingham workings and the diesel-mechanicals were relegated to the Bristol-Weymouth and Reading-Newbury services where a buffet would have operated at a loss.

In 1947 railcar 37 was destroyed by fire near Axbridge and for the next seven years its matching vehicle 38 was paired with ordinary double-cabbed railcar 22 despite the latter being geared for only 40 mph. In the Spring of 1954 however railcar 33 was rebuilt as a single cab vehicle to replace the immolated 37.

Apart from this casualty and Gloucester RCW built railcar 9 - also burned in 1946 - the whole GWR diesel mechanical railcar fleet survived into British Railways ownership and was initially painted either in carmine and cream or - in the case of the parcels cars - overall crimson lake. After the introduction of BR's own diesel multiple unit fleet however, a number of Swindon built railcars were painted in a similar green livery, as worn by W32W in the pictures above.

Apart from this casualty and Gloucester RCW built railcar 9 - also burned, at Heyford on 24 July 1945 - the whole GWR diesel mechanical railcar fleet survived into British Railways ownership and was initially painted either in carmine and cream (like the model of W8W on Roger Webb's Stonebridge layout, above) or - in the case of the parcels cars - overall crimson lake.

After the introduction of BR's own diesel multiple unit fleet however, a number of Swindon built railcars were painted in a similar green livery, as worn by W32W in the pictures above. Despite the new markings however, the ex GWR diesel railcars still showed a tendency to catch fire with W10W burning out at Bridgnorth in 1956 and power twin set W35W and W36W a year later at St Annes, Bristol.

Despite this, ex GWR diesel railcars served such branch and secondary line locations as Bewdley, Hartlebury, Shrewsbury, Tenbury Wells, Avonmouth Dock, Portishead, Pontypool Road, Monmouth, Chepstow and Ledbury.

W18W in particular had left Lambourn to serve on the former Cowbridge Railway by the time that the photograph above was taken on 5 May 1951. Running 5 1/2 miles south from Llantrisant - between Cardiff and Bridgend - this rural line was opened in 1865 but leased by the Taff Vale Railway in 1876 and extended to Aberthaw on the coast in a bid to block the expansionist Barry Railway. Unfortunately the branch with 10 stations along its 12 mile length found very little traffic and passenger services south of Cowbridge ended in 1930 with goods stopping two years later. North of Cowbridge, passenger services remained until 26 November 1951 and freight finally finished in 1965. However, the attractive red and yellow brick station buildings of the Cowbridge Railway survive at St Marychurch Road and St Athan Road.

As the 1950s progressed, the ex GWR railcars left Wales as the Llantrisant and Pontypool branch lines closed and congregated in the London area where locomotive crews were in short supply. By 1956, too, many Swindon built cars were running without the coupling shafts between the power bogie wheels, engine torque thus being supplied to just the inner axle. Similarly, as new Modernisation Plan DMUs began to flood onto British Railways in 1961 many of the ex GWR railcars became concentrated in the Worcester, Severn Valley and Tenbury Wells areas.

All ex GWR railcars were retired in 1962 but three survive in preservation: AEC/Park Royal built 4 at Swindon and Swindon built numbers 20 and 22 on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and at Didcot respectively.

	GWR CARRIAGE LOT NO	INTRODUCED	FIRST SHED	1947	WEIGHT EMPTY TONS CWT	SEATS	DIAGRAM	LAST SHED	WDN
1	1516	05/02/1934	Southall	Reading	24 00	69	U	Oxford	08/1955
2	1522	09/07/1934	Tyseley	Ebbw Jcn	26 04	44	V	Ebbw Jcn	02/1954
3	1522	17/07/1934	Cardiff	Landore	26 04	44	V	Oxford	03/1955
4	1522	26/09/1934	Tyseley	Landore	26 04	44	V	Ebbw Jcn	07/1958
5	1522	22/07/1935	Oxford	Worcester	25 06	70	W	Worcester	12/1957
6	1522	30/08/1935	Worcester	Worcester	25 06	70	W	Worcester	04/1958
7	1522	08/07/1935	Worcester	Worcester	25 06	70	W	Stourbridge	01/1959
8	1547	05/03/1936	Stourbridge	Stourbridge	29 10	70	W	Stourbridge	01/1959
9	1546	03/02/1936	Oxford	-	29 10	70	W	Oxford	05/1946
10	1547	17/02/1936	Banbury	Oxford	29 18	63	X	Reading	04/1956
11	1547	17/02/1936	Weymouth	Oxford	29 18	63	X	Landore	11/1956
12	1547	11/02/1936	Oxford	Reading	29 18	63	X	Oxford	06/1957
13	1546	16/03/1936	Neath	Carmarthen	29 10	70	W	Ebbw Jcn	08/1960
14	1546	23/03/1936	Pontypool	Worcester	29 10	70	W	Stourbridge	08/1960
15	1546	06/04/1936	Cheltenham	Carmarthen	29 10	70	W	Stourbridge	01/1959
16	1546	17/04/1936	Ebbw Jcn	Landore	29 10	70	W	Reading	10/1957
17	1547	27/04/1936	Southall	Southall	28 17	10 ton load	Y	Leamington	01/1959
18	1564	04/04/1937	Reading	Llantrisant	33 12	49	Z	Reading	05 1957
19	1635	11/07/1940	Ebbw Jcn	Reading	35 15	48	A1	Cheltenham	02/1960
20	1635	04/06/1940	Ebbw Jcn	Yeovil	35 13	48	A1	Worcester	10/1962
21	1635	11/07/1940	Bristol	Yeovil	35 13	48	A1	Southall	08/1962
22	1635	18/09/1940	Ebbw Jcn	Worcester	35 13	48	A1	Worcester	10/1962
23	1635	18/09/1940	Ebbw Jcn	Ebbw Jcn	35 13	48	A1	Worcester	10/1962
24	1635	18/09/1940	Bristol	Yeovil	35 13	48	A1	Worcester	10/1962
25	1635	18/09/1940	Worcester	Cheltenham	35 13	48	A1	Bristol	08/1962
26	1635	18/09/1940	Cheltenham	Leamington	35 13	48	A1	Worcester	10/1962
27	1635	06/11/1940	Ebbw Jcn	Worcester	35 13	48	A1	Southall	09/1960
28	1635	16/12/1940	Ebbw Jcn	Yeovil	35 13	48	A1	Bristol	09/1960
29	1635	06/01/1941	Ebbw Jcn	Leamington	35 13	48	A1	Reading	08/1962
30	1635	13/01/1941	Ebbw Jcn	Pontypool	35 13	48	A1	Southall	08/1962
31	1635	03/02/1941	Llanelly	Worcester	35 13	48	A1	Southall	08/1962
32	1635	03/02/1941	Llanelly	Worcester	35 13	48	A1	Worcester	10/1962
33	1635	03/03/1941	Worcester	Stourbridge	35 13	48	A1	Reading	08/1962
34	1636	15/09/1941	Southall	Southall	34 18	10 ton load	A2	Southall	09/1960
35	1637	16/11/1941	Stourbridge	Reading	36 14	60	A4	Bristol	04/1957
36	1637	18/11/1941	Stourbridge	Reading	37 12	44	A3	Bristol	04/1957
37	1637	28/02/1942	Stourbridge	Yeovil	36 14	60	A4	Bristol	09/1949
38	1637	28/02/1942	Stourbridge	Yeovil	37 12	44	A3	Reading	08/1962